a reflective history of gophers, mice, and missions

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The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 30, Number 1, pages 73–76 January 2004 73 MANAGING TECHNOLOGY . A Reflective History of Gophers, Mice, and Missions Edited by Paula Warnken B y way of introducing myself as the new editor/writer of ‘‘Managing Technology’’ to Journal of Academic Li- brarianship readers, I can take the opportunity to reflect on how technology has managed to influence the path I have followed from my years in librarianship forward. As an undergraduate student majoring in English in the mid-sixties at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I held my first library job in the cataloging department of Memorial Library. Here I used two new technologies—a self-correcting electric typewriter and an electric eraser—to efficiently note copy changes on hundreds of cards in the expansive catalog that occupied a large room on the first floor. I learned about the National Union Catalog, but knew nothing about the MARC record. Nor did I know about the formation in 1969 of OCLC (then the Ohio College Library Center), an offline catalog card production system and online shared cataloging network that was conceived in Columbus, Ohio, and initially hosted by Ohio State University. While I was typing and erasing catalog cards in Madison, college presidents in Ohio were promoting this cooperative network of libraries. A library technology revolution was about to happen, and I would be drawn into it. A few years later, I made my second foray into the library world in 1973 in Bowling Green, Ohio, where I had relocated with my husband for his graduate work there. As a parapro- fessional in the reference and interlibrary loan department, I used IBM’s word processing system, keying into a mainframe and submitting punch cards to the computer center. I processed interlibrary loan requests, communicating directly with other libraries using a teletypewriter in addition to typing traditional ALA-approved interlibrary forms. The National Union Catalog was still the primary tool used to locate holdings, but for more recent titles, the union catalog functionality of the shared OCLC system began to augment the National Union Catalog. There were fewer than 100,000 holdings in this catalog for OCLC member libraries, which at that time numbered fewer than 100 and did not extend beyond the Ohio borders. Tech- nology was beginning to make library services more efficient— it was behind the scenes and invisible to those who used the libraries. In 1975, I moved with my family to Zanesville, Ohio, where I was in charge of reference and public services at the Zanesville branch of Ohio University. While working at the branch campus library, I pursued a master’s degree in library science at Kent State University. In an era before interactive video and online distance education, I drove a total of some 18,000 miles back and forth to classes to earn my degree. To supplement the required reference, collection development, and cataloging courses, I enrolled in a new elective course that had recently been added to the curriculum: online searching of bibliographic databases. Here I learned how to use Boolean logic for searching and became aware of the databases that were then available through a handful of utilities. It was during my Zanesville years that the union catalog functionality of the shared catalog system was used to develop the OCLC Interlibrary Loan module. Online ordering of interlibrary loan materials began to slowly replace the teletypewriter and ALA ILL forms that were transmitted via U.S. mail. With shared library holdings information, libraries could begin to think of cooperative collection development, and smaller, regional networks and consortia began to develop. At the Zanesville branch of Ohio University, I began to use new telecommunications technologies. With the knowledge and techniques I was learning about in library school, I was able to dial into Dialog and BRS information retrieval systems and conduct bibliographic searches. Citations could be printed off on the attached Texas Instruments printing terminal. Data commu- nications and new computing technologies were beginning to expand reference services beyond the confines of their physical space. At this early stage, a librarian needed to execute this new technology-based reference service; faculty presence during the search was optional. In 1980, I moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to become Head of Public Services at Xavier University, a position I held for three years before being appointed Director of Libraries. The 1980s were a decade when technology began visibly to change the face of libraries. No longer were online catalogs only available to those large institutions who developed them in-house, and no longer were they being built using proprietary hardware and software. Vendors were offering platform-independent systems that could be mounted on hardware platforms that were familiar to computing center personnel. As Head of Public Services, I led efforts to integrate library instruction into the curriculum, teaching students and faculty Paula Warnken is Associate Provost, Information Resources, State University of New York-Cortland, Miller Building, Room 206, Cortland, NY 13045 <[email protected]>.

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MANAGING TECHNOLOGY

The Journal of

Paula WarnUniversity oCortland, N

. A Reflective History of Gophers, Mice,and Missions

Academic Libra

ken is Associaf New York-

Y 13045 <war

Edited by Paula Warnken

By way of introducing myself as the new editor/writer of‘‘Managing Technology’’ to Journal of Academic Li-brarianship readers, I can take the opportunity to reflect

on how technology has managed to influence the path I havefollowed from my years in librarianship forward.

As an undergraduate student majoring in English in themid-sixties at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I held myfirst library job in the cataloging department of MemorialLibrary. Here I used two new technologies—a self-correctingelectric typewriter and an electric eraser—to efficiently notecopy changes on hundreds of cards in the expansive catalogthat occupied a large room on the first floor. I learned aboutthe National Union Catalog, but knew nothing about theMARC record. Nor did I know about the formation in 1969of OCLC (then the Ohio College Library Center), an offlinecatalog card production system and online shared catalogingnetwork that was conceived in Columbus, Ohio, and initiallyhosted by Ohio State University. While I was typing anderasing catalog cards in Madison, college presidents in Ohiowere promoting this cooperative network of libraries. Alibrary technology revolution was about to happen, and Iwould be drawn into it.

A few years later, I made my second foray into the libraryworld in 1973 in Bowling Green, Ohio, where I had relocatedwith my husband for his graduate work there. As a parapro-fessional in the reference and interlibrary loan department, Iused IBM’s word processing system, keying into a mainframeand submitting punch cards to the computer center. I processedinterlibrary loan requests, communicating directly with otherlibraries using a teletypewriter in addition to typing traditionalALA-approved interlibrary forms. The National Union Catalogwas still the primary tool used to locate holdings, but for morerecent titles, the union catalog functionality of the sharedOCLC system began to augment the National Union Catalog.There were fewer than 100,000 holdings in this catalog forOCLC member libraries, which at that time numbered fewerthan 100 and did not extend beyond the Ohio borders. Tech-nology was beginning to make library services more efficient—it was behind the scenes and invisible to those who used thelibraries.

rianship, Volume 30, Number 1, pages 73–76

te Provost, Information Resources, StateCortland, Miller Building, Room 206,[email protected]>.

In 1975, I moved with my family to Zanesville, Ohio, where Iwas in charge of reference and public services at the Zanesvillebranch of Ohio University. While working at the branch campuslibrary, I pursued a master’s degree in library science at KentState University. In an era before interactive video and onlinedistance education, I drove a total of some 18,000 miles backand forth to classes to earn my degree. To supplement therequired reference, collection development, and catalogingcourses, I enrolled in a new elective course that had recentlybeen added to the curriculum: online searching of bibliographicdatabases. Here I learned how to use Boolean logic for searchingand became aware of the databases that were then availablethrough a handful of utilities.

It was during my Zanesville years that the union catalogfunctionality of the shared catalog system was used todevelop the OCLC Interlibrary Loan module. Online orderingof interlibrary loan materials began to slowly replace theteletypewriter and ALA ILL forms that were transmitted viaU.S. mail. With shared library holdings information, librariescould begin to think of cooperative collection development,and smaller, regional networks and consortia began todevelop.

At the Zanesville branch of Ohio University, I began to usenew telecommunications technologies. With the knowledge andtechniques I was learning about in library school, I was able todial into Dialog and BRS information retrieval systems andconduct bibliographic searches. Citations could be printed off onthe attached Texas Instruments printing terminal. Data commu-nications and new computing technologies were beginning toexpand reference services beyond the confines of their physicalspace. At this early stage, a librarian needed to execute this newtechnology-based reference service; faculty presence during thesearch was optional.

In 1980, I moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to become Head ofPublic Services at Xavier University, a position I held for threeyears before being appointed Director of Libraries. The 1980swere a decade when technology began visibly to change the faceof libraries. No longer were online catalogs only available tothose large institutions who developed them in-house, and nolonger were they being built using proprietary hardware andsoftware. Vendors were offering platform-independent systemsthat could be mounted on hardware platforms that were familiarto computing center personnel.

As Head of Public Services, I led efforts to integrate libraryinstruction into the curriculum, teaching students and faculty

January 2004 73

alike about the new, emerging information technologies and howthey facilitated the research process. At the same time, I workedclosely with staff members to articulate our comprehensivelibrary automation needs. At Xavier, we were looking at a totalsystem approach that could be accommodated by the newintegrated online systems, a newer generation of technology thatwas replacing single module systems.

Moving into the Library Director position at Xavier in themid-1980s, I confronted the challenge of retrospective conver-sion to gain full advantage of automation. And as I was busyworking with the staff to prepare collections and evaluatefunctions in preparation for an integrated, automated catalog,the world of reference was also busy changing. Microcomput-ing became more flexible and powerful. The availability andcapabilities of the new CD-ROM technology meant it was nolonger always necessary to dial into remote databases. Facultycould begin to search databases without librarian mediation.New data communications technologies were available andaffordable. Local area networks made communications amongworkstations possible and further enhanced the online referencecapabilities.

At a time when automation was changing forever thefamiliar face of the library and its collections, it was creatinga parallel need to consider new staffing patterns. In the 1980s,most computing centers were still dealing with centralized,mainframe computing, and were just learning about micro-computers. They knew very little about libraries and biblio-graphic practices, so their assistance was limited. At the sametime, librarians with interest and aptitude in technologies werebeginning to assume technologist roles, and positions such as‘‘systems librarian’’ or ‘‘automation librarian’’ were beingcreated. Technical services were more tightly integrated withpublic services, and collaborative decision making was critical.Incorporating technology meant rethinking the entire organi-zation, from reconfiguring departments to reworking jobdescriptions. The ongoing education and retraining of librarystaff and their patrons became a priority. Familiarity withmicrocomputers and library automation was becoming a re-quirement for all new position descriptions, regardless ofdepartment.

In the 1980s, I was active in the Greater Cincinnati LibraryConsortium, which, like many similar cooperative organizations,instituted direct lending and (nonelectronic) document deliveryprograms, and began discussions of shared collection develop-ment initiatives. Discussion centered on how to best realizesavings from combined buying power. As library director, I wasestablishing new types of relationships with other libraries andwith vendors of services, an increasing number of which waselectronic.

During the 1980s, I was also active on the governing board ofOHIONET, one of many regional consortia that developed tobroker OCLC and other automated services. As these types ofcooperative networks became more prominent—many librariesbelonged to several—the concept of virtual libraries was emerg-ing. Libraries were beginning to shift their focus and budgetingpractices from developing exclusively local collections to pro-viding access to information and sharing resources. As the 1980swere coming to a close, libraries were working together toanticipate, identify, and respond to new technologies that wereimpacting services and resources.

By the early 1990s, computing and telecommunicationstechnologies were converging in ways that significantly

74 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

redirected the course of information resources as well asmy own career path. Colleges and universities were movingto distributed computing and building telecommunicationsnetworks. Online catalogs and other networked informationdatabases could be linked to other systems, and theseresources became accessible outside of the library. Moreinformation was moving to a digital format that was widelyavailable and could be easily shared. Institutional networkscould access information from the outside world. The Internetwas emerging as a powerful vehicle to share information.Mice were appearing and multiplying rapidly. There was nogoing back.

The library was no longer the sole proprietor and purveyor ofinformation. As information flowed through distributed comput-ing systems, libraries began to share the acquisition, manage-ment, and dissemination of information with computing,telecommunications, and media professionals. At colleges anduniversities, organizations and mission statements were chang-ing to reflect new ways of managing information needs.

So it was that in 1992, the Cortland campus of the StateUniversity of New York (SUNY) decided to combine its library,computing, telecommunications, and media services under oneumbrella organization. The following year, I was appointedSUNY-Cortland’s Associate Vice President for InformationResources, and became responsible for planning, developing,coordinating, and managing the information and technologicalresources and services of the campus.

In this broader role, I would continue to manage technology’sunprecedented impact on the library and the shifting focus from‘‘collections’’ to ‘‘information.’’ I was responsible for develop-ing services that were essential to libraries—as well as fordetermining new paths of library growth to acknowledge thegrowing influence of technology.

In the early 1990s, it was uncommon for libraries andcomputing centers to be merged into a single administrative unitas had been done at Cortland. Since that time, there have beenmore such mergers, some more integrated and some moresuccessful than others. In my experience, the successful collab-oration of librarians and technologists depends more on the typesof working relationships established and maintained betweenindividuals and departments, and less on the organizationalmodel.

Technology has dramatically changed services and expect-ations in the ten years that I have been at Cortland. During thistime, I have overseen several further changes in the organization,which now comprises four units—Library, Media Services,Academic Computing, and Administrative Computing—eachwith a distinct, yet related, mission.

The four departments work together, interdependent andsharing mutual goals. Collaboration among departments hasbeen most successful when it has been organic, often emanatingfrom projects that require cross-departmental collaboration. Overthe years, and as the technology has transformed each of thedepartments in Information Resources, unique working relation-ships have developed, some more permanent than others. Over-all, the new synergy has broadened and deepened as the campushas come to rely increasingly on new instructional technologiesand the electronic delivery of information.

Much of my work at Cortland has been influenced by the newtechnology’s dramatic impact on library use patterns. Newinstructional technologies have changed the teaching and learn-ing experience for faculty and students. The focus on learner-

centered education with active student participation has involvedlibraries more directly in the teaching process.

In the 1980s, faculty and students could conduct their ownelectronic searches on databases, but relied on libraries tosupply the information they needed. In the 1990s, libraries pro-vided access to the full text of publications. With the availabil-ity of electronic current awareness services, tables of contentscould be browsed on the computer. At the same time, newcomputing and telecommunications technologies were bringingthis information to anyone with a computer and data commu-nications connections—at home and in offices. Library resour-ces were free of previous physical boundaries. Ubiquitouselectronic access to information meant that the library hadindeed become virtual.

And the ubiquitous Internet has changed reference servicesforever. In my early days at Cortland, reference librarians wereconsulted to make sense out of ‘‘Gopher,’’ named for its origin inMinnesota and for its function, to ‘‘go-fer’’ information locatedon other computers connected to the Internet. As graphic userinterface technology and Web browsers became increasinglyavailable, and the World Wide Web made access to electronicinformation faster and easier, consulting a reference librarianwas not always necessary.

The Web—with text, graphics, audio, and video—had be-come easy to navigate with standard browsers, and was becom-ing itself a virtual library with infinite resources. Libraries wereproviding services and resources, including catalogs and sub-scription databases, in a Web-based environment with Webinterfaces. This new environment brought new challenges tolibraries and librarians: URLs were being cataloged, classified,and added to the research guides that bibliographers developed.Libraries were developing their own Web pages to provideaccess to information.

With this emergence of the Web as a primary user interface,librarians seemed less visible and were less in control of accessto information. At the same time, they were challenged toupdate their technical skills to learn new search engines andeffectively navigate the ever-growing electronic resources. Asan administrator, I was confronted with the challenge ofsupporting a steep (for some) learning curve and the need todevelop the skills for learning, adapting, and adopting informa-tion retrieval tools.

Students who came into the library were starting to expectinstant access to electronic information. Librarians were strug-gling to maintain both the traditional and electronic referenceenvironments and were expected not only to explain researchmethods and conduct searches in each environment, but alsoto handle a wide new range of technical matters—from ter-minology, through document management, to mechanical taskssuch as fixing printer jams. The same technology that wascreating efficiencies and improving access was also becominga burden of sorts—as librarians were forced to rely ontechnology, their patrons were unhappy when new skill setsdid not achieve desired results. New technologies had changedthe information-seeking behaviors of librarians and theirclientele.

The transmutability of electronic information also presentednew challenges. Electronic authoring capabilities and Internetpublishing opportunities were resulting in new copyright issuesand plagiarism problems. As faculty members continued to relyon the library to assume the role of protector of copyright, theyneeded to learn about the copyright infringement implications of

downloading and file sharing, and had to become familiar withthe Digital Millennium Copyright Act that dealt with cyberspaceissues.

Administration of library budgets became a greater chal-lenge than ever. Limited acquisitions budgets had to bestretched to support print and electronic collections. Budgetsfor obtaining and updating electronic equipment had to bedeveloped and justified at a time when universities had tobalance requests for new technologies from all academicsectors. Online library systems needed to be updated andreplaced. Inflation in the publishing world and the ever-increasing demands for both print and electronic materialscreated conflicting budget priorities.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the future of librariesand librarians is as unclear to chart as technology is certain tocontinue transforming the means by which information isgathered, processed, accessed, and disseminated. At the sametime, new tools of technology will both enable and challengelibraries to provide more and increasingly complex services,with ever-expanding access, and always with new roles withinthe environments and institutions they support.

These days, librarians are working with students who knowcomputers, but might not understand information. They areworking with a disparate group of faculty members, some whorelied on electronic resources as they pursued undergraduate andgraduate degrees, and others who rue the demise of the iconiccard catalog. Librarians must be innovative and flexible as theywork to provide seamless access to information to users withheightened expectations.

At Cortland, the library’s role has been expanded by addingnew collection types and information services, including analogand digital media in all formats. Instructional course design andelectronic production services have been incorporated into thelibrary mission. The library’s teaching role has grown to includeinstruction in the use of technology. The college’s ComputerApplications Program, which offers credit-bearing courses ininformation and computer literacy, is housed in the library, andlibrary faculty members are instructors. A library faculty mem-ber is the director of the collegewide Center for the Advance-ment of Technology in Education. Information and access arenow in fact the shared responsibility of the library and itsacademic partners, who provide information directly to class-room and laboratories.

As chief information officer, I have the responsibility tofacilitate the process by which librarians and their clientele meetthese new information and technology needs and the challengesthat come with them. I must make decisions to anticipate a futurefull of change that is sometimes unwelcome and often unpre-dictable. I must keep the library informed of new technologicaldevelopments, and work with librarians who need to understandthe issues to help make decisions about the development andimplementation of new technologies. I must be judicious in myallocation of resources, both within my broad areas of fiscalresponsibility and within the library.

So that early career path has been winding and widening tothis new scope of responsibilities. As the evolving libraryenvironment is being made more complex every day, I continueto rethink the workflow of policies and procedures that can bestmake the power of technology available to those who have cometo depend so much upon it. After all, the mission of the SUNY-Cortland library for which I have administrative responsibilitytoday is no different from the mission of the University of

January 2004 75

Wisconsin library where I first ventured as an employee: tosupport the education mission of the institution by deployingresources that will help people learn.

In the upcoming issues of Journal of Academic Librarian-ship, I plan to further examine technology’s influence on

76 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

libraries and librarianship, with the hope of identifying someindicative issues and trends. Effective planning is always acomplex and difficult process, and I look forward to sharingthoughts and insights with readers that can help us all betteranticipate developments in the future.